Matt Elliott

In the 1990s, under the name of The Third Eye Foundation, Matt Elliott brought out several drum‘n'bass albums, five on the Domino label, the Franz Ferdinand label, and with the Arctic Monkeys. In the early 2000s, he settled in the south of France and left The Third Eye Foundation to devote himself to a radically different project taking him well away from the electro scene. With The Mess We Made , followed by Drinking Songs, then, in 2004, by Failing Songs, he comes across as a peerless songwriter. His simple, melancholic songs, with their dark lyrics, are underpinned by a polyphonic composition which lends great depth to each of his pieces. In the instrumental motifs based on guitar, cello and piano, we hear Slavic and Spanish-oriented influences, while the use of choirs gives the whole thing an almost liturgical feel.